Just a guy in Vermont trying to connect all the dots...
Dan York
Author's posts
Dec 13
Internet Society Joins Chorus of Those Opposing SOPA
Yesterday the Internet Society formally joined the opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act (a.k.a. "SOPA" - background info available) with a statement from the Internet Society Board of Trustees:
http://isoc.org/wp/newsletter/?p=4932
The statement says in part:
The Internet Society Board of Trustees has expressed concern with a number of U.S. legislative proposals that would mandate DNS blocking and filtering by ISPs to protect the interests of copyright holders. While the Internet Society agrees that combating illicit online activity is an important public policy objective, these critical issues must be addressed in ways that do not undermine the viability of the Internet as a platform for innovation across all industries by compromising its global architecture. The Internet Society Board of Trustees does not believe that the Protect-IP Act (PIPA) and Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) are consistent with these basic principles.
Specifically, the Internet Society is concerned with provisions in both bills regarding Domain Name System (DNS) filtering. DNS filtering is often proposed as a way to block illegal content consumption by end users. Yet policies to mandate DNS filtering will be ineffective for that purpose and will interfere with cross-border data flows and services undermining innovation and social development across the globe.
The statement goes on in further detail to outline the organization's concerns.
The opposition of the Internet Society to SOPA is not a surprise given that the organization issued a white paper on the perils of DNS Filtering back in the spring of 2011 in response to the U.S. Senate's version of the bill, the Protect-IP Act (a.k.a. "PIPA"). Still, a formal statement of opposition is very welcome to add to the many other voices indicating that SOPA and PIPA specify the wrong solutions to the problem.
Great to see!
[Full Disclosure: I am employed by the Internet Society but NOT in the public policy section and so all opinions expressed here are entirely my own and do not necessarily represent the views of the organization.]
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Dec 13
New WordPress 3.3 Available With Much Simpler User Interface, Uploading
The folks over at Automattic announced last night that WordPress 3.3 is now out and, as per usual, provided a spiffy little video to highlight the new changes:
I've already updated one of my sites and am indeed impressed by the simpler and cleaner UI. Just as one very simple example, it was always annoying in earlier versions of WordPress that you had to click on the down arrow in the left navigation admin menu to get to the menu choices. The new fly-out menus are a whole lot easier! Similarly, the simplification of the upload process to a single button is a nice step.
There are a veritable TON of other changes and fixes for those interested in the gory details:
http://codex.wordpress.org/Version_3.3
All in all it looks like quite a solid release. I'm looking forward to seeing how it works on my other sites!
P.S. WordPress 3.3 is available for immediate download, although if you are running any recent version of WordPress you can simply "update" your site (after backing it up!) through the admin menus.
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Dec 12
Dilbert On Using Skype Versus Flying To A Meeting…
Brilliant Dilbert comic on December 8th:
Well said... in this era of so many different communications and collaboration tools, the need to fly somewhere for a "quick meeting" should hopefully be reduced. I fully understand the need for face-to-face meetings... and find them to be extremely effective when done well. But the kind of travel for a "quick meeting" that used to be routine really shouldn't need to happen so much today.
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Dec 08
Heading to Boston for USENIX LISA 2011 Conference Dec 8 and 9
IPv6, DNSSEC, RPKI, etc.: What’s the Holdup and How Can We Help?You’re busy. We get it. This industry moves fast and you’ve got your hands full keeping your networks updated and secure from the threat of the day. But why is it taking so long to deploy IPv6, DNSSEC, and other standards coming out of the IETF? These standards are the future of the Internet, but deployment to date has been slow.
He'll be outlining the new ISOC project of which I am a part that aims to help speed up the deployment of these standards - and asking for feedback and help. I will be there along with another team member, Megan Kruse, to talk with folks about the project and interact with people involved with IPv6, DNSSEC and other technologies.
It's been a good number of years since I last attended a USENIX conference but I'm very much looking forward to getting back with the crowd. Looks like some excellent technical talks so I'm looking forward to learning a good bit.
If you are down at LISA, please do feel free to drop me a note - or find me on Twitter. I expect I'll be tweeting out of the event and probably posting some thoughts and comments.
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Dec 07
Slides: Does Anyone Really Give a _____ About VoIP Security?
Does anyone really give a (insert favorite profanity) about VoIP security? That was the key question I asked in the presentation I have to the recent 2011 ITT Real-Time Communications Conference. Technically, my talk with titled "The State of VoIP Security", but I decided to have a little bit of fun with it.
It was an enjoyable session and I recorded a video that I hope that I can make the cycles to produce and upload sometime soon.
Meanwhile, the slides for my talk are now online, although given my style they really need audio or video. Still, you can get a sense of what I covered:
The State of VoIP Security, a.k.a. “Does Anyone Really Give A _____ About VoIP Security?"
View more presentations from Dan York
P.S. If you would like to have me give a presentation like this at an event you are involved with, please contact me. I'm frequently presenting and always open to speaking at new venues.
Dec 07
The State of VoIP Security, a.k.a. “Does Anyone Really Give A _____ About VoIP Security?”
Does anyone really care about VoIP security? Why should they? What are the main issues? At the 2011 Real-Time Communications Conference sponsored by the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), Dan York spoke about all these questions and gave a view of the overall state of the industry. A video recording of the Oct 5, 2011, session will be available and will be able to be found at http://www.voipsa.org/blog/ when it is ready.
Dec 07
The State of VoIP Security, a.k.a. “Does Anyone Really Give A _____ About VoIP Security?”
Does anyone really care about VoIP security? Why should they? What are the main issues? At the 2011 Real-Time Communications Conference sponsored by the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), Dan York spoke about all these questions and gave a view of the overall state of the industry. A video recording of the Oct 5, 2011, session will be available and will be able to be found at http://www.voipsa.org/blog/ when it is ready.
Dec 07
New Github for Mac 1.1 Release Nov 23rd…
I just noticed yesterday that a new version of Github for Mac was released on November 23rd. The blog post about the 1.1 release highlights the major changes as:
- The “Changes” view has been completely redesigned.
- The ability from the GUI to commit individual lines of code.
- A “Commit & Sync” feature so that you have just one step to get your code on Github (or wherever it is hosted).
- Full screen support for Lion.
- Tracking repositories if they are moved or renamed.
I’ve gone ahead and downloaded Mac for Github 1.1 and am looking forward to seeing how it works.
P.S. And yes, being perhaps old-skool, I mostly use the command line to work with git. But there are times when a GUI is nice, particularly when looking at changes between versions.
Dec 06
New version 0.1.3 of Tropo-webapi-python: Build Tropo voice/SMS/IM/Twitter apps using python
My former colleague Justin Dupree just posted a new version of the Tropo-webapi-python package to Pypi at:
To install the package, assuming you have pip installed, you should be able to just type:
pip install tropo-webapi-python
and then you can get started building Tropo applications that use voice, SMS, IM or Twitter as channels to communicate with people. The documentation for the Tropo WebAPI provides a full explanation of the API and also sample applications. Samples are also provided in the distribution.
The “tropo-webapi-python” package lives on Github at:
and those of you wanting to live on the edge can simply clone the repository from Github and use it there.
I’ll also mention that at this point I’ve completely stepped away from the maintenance of this ‘tropo-webapi-python’ package (as I’m no longer with Voxeo) and Justin and the Voxeo Labs team are now maintaining the package.
Have fun with it! I definitely enjoy creating Tropo apps using python!
Dec 05
What Is The Future of the PSTN? FCC Holding Workshops Dec 6th and 14th
As I recently wrote over on CircleID, the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is holding two workshops on this topic of what comes next for the PSTN.
The first workshop, tomorrow, December 6, 2012, will cover "what obstacles and opportunities the transition may create regarding public safety, accessibility, and ubiquitous service".
The second workshop on December 14, 2012, will cover "a wide array of economic, technological, and policy issues that need to be addressed as consumers choose to subscribe to, and rely on, new technologies and services."
The FCC's Public Notice about these PSTN Transition Workshops contains information about how to attend, both in person and via the FCC's live stream at http://www.fcc.gov/live.
The meeting tomorrow will begin at 9:00 am US Eastern time.
If you are in the Washington, DC, area and able to get to these workshops, it may be a great opportunity to join with others in expressing to the FCC a vision for what we want for the post-PSTN communications infrastructure.
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